Highlights: Obama’s Syria Interviews on 6 Networks

In six television interviews, President Barack Obama on Monday made cautiously positive remarks about a possible deal that would see Syria hand over its chemical weapons stockpiles to avert U.S. military action against the country. Here below are highlights from those interviews, with links to the networks’ write-ups and/or video when available. Also, read our main WSJ writeup.

“Well, I think you have to take it with a grain of salt initially. But between the statements that we saw from the Russians– the statement today from the Syrians– this represents a potentially positive development. We are going to run this to ground. John Kerry will be talking to his Russian counterpart. We’re going to make sure that we see how serious these proposals are. And my preference consistently has been a diplomatic resolution to this problem. But what we have to also keep in mind is that Syria has large chemical weapon stockpiles– they have been in denial mode for quite some time– we have been in discussions for a long time now about trying to do something about these chemical weapons with the Russians as well as the Syrians and we haven’t gotten movement.”

“It’s certainly a positive development when the Russians and the Syrians both make gestures toward dealing with these chemical weapons.”

“If we can accomplish this limited goal without taking military action, that would be my preference. On the other hand, if we don’t maintain and move forward without a credible threat of military pressure, I don’t think we’ll actually get the kind of agreement I’d like to see.”

“[F]or [Russia and Iran] to potentially put pressure on Assad to say, ‘Let’s figure out a way that the international community gets control of– of– of these weapons in a verifiable and forcible way’ — I think it’s something that we will run to ground. So John Kerry will be talking to his counterparts in Russia, we will contact the U.N. Security Council members as well as the Secretary General of the U.N. And let’s see what happens over the next several days to see if in fact what they’re talking about is realistic.”

“I have instructed John Kerry to speak directly to the Russians and run this to ground. If we can exhaust these diplomatic efforts and come up with a formula that gives the international community a verifiable, enforceable mechanism to deal with these chemical weapons in Syria, then I’m all for it. But we’re going to have to see some specifics.”

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